The Internet says “bye sister” to James Charles

Recently the beauty community has been swept into a heated controversy between YouTube sensation James Charles, 19, who rose to fame in 2016, when he made the front cover of popular magazine Covergirl and another influential beauty blogger, Tati Westbrook, who owns a beauty supplement companycalled Halo Beauty.

The two used to be close friends with Tati taking on an almost mentor/mother relationship by teaching, supporting and nourishing James Charles and his career.

According to her YouTube video entitled ‘SISTER BYE’ (which runs for a whole 43 minutes if you want to watch Tati spill the tea!), the fight initiated when James was at Coachella and did some promotion over Instagram for a business rival to Tati’s beauty supplement business, Sugar Bear Hair, those super cute little bear vitamins all over Instagram.

On the surface, this might seem very superficial but it actually turns out that the tea is SCALDING hot.

Tati posted a video to her Instagram story saying she felt lost, betrayed and hurt by someone close to her. It didn’t take the internet long to put two and two together and figure out she was upset about James promoting beauty supplements that were not her own.

Tati also accuses James Charles of some shocking behaviour in her video and claims she is sick of excusing his behaviour to the wider community. These accusations range from being a spoiled brat and always getting what he wants, to sexually manipulating straight men into sleeping with him by using his wealth and status to pressure them.

James’s video essentially praises Tati and her husband for all the love and emotional support they have invested in him and his career. He claims he is disappointed in himself for ending the relationship; he stutters out repetitive apologies for his actions and mistakes, implying his age is a factor and that he will keep trying to be the best version of him that he can be.

Since the drama started last Friday, some people have spoken out in defence of James Charles, claiming that Tati is making fraudulent falsehoods about James, most notably Gabriel Zamora (another popular beauty influencer on YouTube) who made his own video featuring his opinion of the drama. He dismisses the claims against James and says James is a great person, along with other supportive comments.

However, people are mostly responding to this drama in a negative way, which is evidenced by the multitude of memes circulating the internet currently and the fact that James has lost over a million followers, including highly influential beauty celebrities such as Jeffree Star (who owns Jeffree Star Cosmetics and has previously promoted James on his popular YouTube channel).